


I Am Not Cowed By Darkness

by bramblefae



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 04:40:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16847317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblefae/pseuds/bramblefae
Summary: A bit from my Archer Lavellan (Rather than my canon) about her Vallaslin.  Inspired by a codex entry about Falon'Din.





	I Am Not Cowed By Darkness

Among the Dalish, receiving one’s vallaslin is a rite of passage, like marrying or having children.  I’d been training with a bow since I could hold one. I’d been trailing along with the hunters for several summers. I thought myself ready to honor the Great Huntress Andruil. That’s when the Keeper gave me the chance to hunt alone to prove myself a capable adult.

It was a night hunt and I will admit to some hesitation.  I positioned myself high in a tree, out of site of the camp. My sight adjusted to the dark, my hearing to the night sounds as an owl glided silently to land on a branch a few feet away from me.

I’d forgotten that single moment of intense, blind, unthinking terror until the moment I awoke in the dungeon in Haven.

Both times, I took a deep breath and looked around. And both times, getting my bearings steadied me.

In that tree, I spent the better part of the night with that owl coming and going, silent as the cold moon above the trees. I remembered a bit the Keeper had told us about Falon’Din. I never remembered these tales like I should have done. I always felt like sitting still for so long was the lot of the Keeper’s apprentices, not me. But I remembered that Falon’Din was wanting a companion and the owl came to him.

This idea settled over me like calm, and stayed with me. Near dawn, I took down a sleepy ram, meandering through, looking for its own breakfast. I hauled it back to camp on a makeshift travois with the thought of the owl still heavy on my mind.

Keeper Istimaethoriel watched as I left the meat with the other hunters and walked toward her aravel.

I stood with my hands behind my back and tried to remember how it went. “I am not afraid of the dark. Let me serve he who also is not afraid of night.”

The next day, I received my vallaslin in honor of Falon’Din.


End file.
